


The Queens Prophet

by Jason_Silver



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: Blood, Branding, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Face Slapping, I can't NOT see Catherine as a very possessive dom, IDK if anyone is even looking for this pairing but here it is, Knife Play, Light Bondage, Marking, Prophecy, Rare Pairings, bottom!nostradamus, top!Catherine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27602795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jason_Silver/pseuds/Jason_Silver
Summary: A kind of angsty kind of hot if you're into that kind of thing re-telling of how Nostradamus came to be the Queen's prophet.TW: some disturbing imagery and fucked up sex
Relationships: Nostradamus/Catherine De Medici
Kudos: 4





	The Queens Prophet

When Nostradamus first sees Catherine De Medici the incredible amount of variable futures that flash in his mind overwhelm him so much he falls to his knees. He's in a crowd watching her carriage go by on her wedding day. Nostradamus manages to get his legs under himself and run. He's large and the crowd parts before him like water, people scattering out of his way as he desperately tries to put as much distance between himself and that woman as possible.

He sees cities burnt to the ground.

Plague.

A headless Queen Mary of Scotland.

A man stretched out on the rack wrongfully accused.

The boy prince, Francis's death over and over and over again blood seeping from his ears as an unknowable illness takes him, sometimes in the arms of his beloved, sometimes in Catherine's arms, sometimes alone locked away in dungeon.

He's never seen this far into the future before.

He's never seen this many futures before.

Every instinct in him tells him to run, to board a ship and put as many oceans between him and all these horrible futures so he sets about to do just that. His bag is packed, it's not much, he doesn't even bother to make his apologies to the circus troop he'd been staying with.

As quickly as his legs will take him he's at a harbor with just enough coin in his pocket to board that ship to the new world ...

The words that were said to him as a child come back as they often do to wash over him and strip him bare of any notion that he has a choice in his future.

"You will advise a great Queen, in return she will give you nothing but sorrow and pain, and yet you will advise her all the same."

He knew the moment he saw her that Catherine De Medici was that great Queen with more certainty than he knew that there was ground beneath his feet and sky above his head.

And he of all people knows what happens when you try to out run a prophecy.

It takes cunning on his part and every ounce of charm he has, which isn't much but it's just enough, to get a position in the royal guard (although he suspects his size and skill with a axe are more the reason than his forged papers and uneasy smile).

The second time he sees Catherine De Medici the images that rise up in his head have him clutching at the wall for balance and grateful beyond belief that he's wearing a helmet because his face turns beat red.

He sees her with a knife in her hands advancing on him slowly throwing accusation, fear and sorrow war in her eyes and he presents his chest to be split open by her knife knowing he deserves it.

He sees her splayed out on the cobblestones having been thrown out the window by the king and he feels the kings blood flow through his fingers as he crushes the man's head blind with vengeance.

He sees her .... naked on top of him with a glint in her eyes and a smile splitting her face, he can feel her tight and hot around his cock as she holds him down and takes and takes and takes.

Catherine De Medici glances at him with a frown on her face and it takes every ounce of willpower to haul himself back to his feet and stand up straight. He swears he sees a the ghost of a smile on her lips before she turns away.

He'd worked his way into the infirmary, the practicing doctor is drunk all of the time leaving him and a mousy brown haired girl to most of the work. It allows him to be back in the woods, he didn't know he could miss it so much being locked away in the castle surrounded stone and so many more people than he's ever let himself be with before.

It's agony feeling someone brush past him in the hallway and getting a glimpse into their lives. He has to keep his mouth shut, he thought he was good at it but now there's just so many futures pressing him on him he feels like he might explode.

So he gathers his herbs when ever he can get a moment to and throws himself into the work of cures and poultices. Treating soldiers wounds and the burnt hands of the new cook alike. He doesn't see much of the royal family, the doctor treats them although there isn't much to treat beyond the occasional sleeping draft.

Avoiding Catherine De Medici is an art form that he's become a master in. The pull is no longer as strong now that he's situated himself in a position to be useful to her when she needs it. For years after the prophecy was first given to him he couldn't sleep feeling like there was string tugging at his heart trying to pull him towards his destiny. Now that he's here he knows it isn't time yet, so he must wait.

He becomes fascinated with poisons and Catherine De Medici is entirely to blame. She has her own stash, he thinks, he saw it once in a vision which have mercifully become less and less. It's like exposure therapy, the more he's around her the more vague his visions get about her simmering down into simple feelings or fleeting words. He still tenses every time she's near, he can feel her presence when she enters the room like the cold brush of fingers on the back of his neck. He's so afraid he'll see THAT vision again. It's worthy of beheading the fact that he's seen the queen naked even if it was only in his head. The fact that he knows what she feels like when she -

Poisons, today he is concocting a paralytic at her un-spoken request. He manages to stop his hands from shaking, he needs to get this right. In a weeks time she will call on him and he must be ready.

The queen enters the small room in the dungeons where Nostradamus and the nurse practice their craft, the girl is gone for the week to attend to the kings hunting party. He's bent over a book but he hasn't read a word in the three long hours he's been sitting in that one position waiting. Waiting for her.

She says nothing at first but he knows she's watching him. He doesn't move, feeling for once in his life like a trapped beast. No visions come, not even a vague feeling about something. He's powerless and he knows he will be lost if he looks in her eyes.

"I'm told you're the one to ask about poisons."

Her voice is clear and strong echoing off the stone wall and by all the gods he can't stop himself from looking up to meet her eyes.

She does not believe his prophecy at first and he does not blame her for it but ever potion he brews her comes with one.

"You will meet a white flower today, be careful were you tread so that you do not crush it." He never raises his voice much above a whisper and her fingers brush against his as he takes the little bottle. She huffs her annoyance. 

"It will rain, but rain will bring opportunities." He doesn't meet her eyes because the last time he did that he had to spend a week in the woods literally chopping down trees to release all the emotions it welled up in him.

"Could you be any more vague." She scoffs.

"Don't trust the viscount, he has motives that are not known to you." It's probably his most useless one yet given when he's made for her today will make the man so sick he'll retire to his own estate before he's even had his audience with the king.

"For once something we agree on." But she lingers patiently as he gives her strict instructions to handle with gloves lest she want to see him again so soon. "Don't pretend my visits aren't the highlight of your week Nostradamus." She's gone before he can even splutter a reply.

"How do you seem to know what I want before even I know myself." She's standing in the doorway to his chambers looking the picture of nobility and holding the small satchel of herbs he slipped under her door last night to help ease her monthly troubles. Nostradamus flushes and quickly tires to hide himself beneath his sheets. He often sleeps in nothing but what he was born with and he has no idea how she managed to get past the locks on his door, several of which he'd placed there himself.

"Your Majesty." Is all he manages to choke out sounding scandalized. Her laugh fills the room, a discordant melody.

"One would think if you could see the future you wouldn't been so caught off guard by me all the time." She doesn't budge from her position or look away to allow him to find some semblance of decency.

"Your Majesties is ... unpredictable." He mutters, hand snaking out from under his sheets to desperately clutch at robe hanging off the side of the bed.

In one graceful sweep she's in the room snatching up the robe and holding it out of his reach.

"What do you see today Nostradamus."

His vision is clouded by the image of a key turning in the lock of his door sealing them both in, of her whispers to the guards to clear the hallway, of the passageway outside his door she's used so she wouldn't be seen. The key turning in lock binding him in this moment that he'd never dare pray would come true.

"No one knows you're here." He breaths out.

Her smile is wide and full of teeth and he longs to feel them sink into his flesh.

He lets her bind his hands to the bed frame and doesn't ask why, his vision come up short on any reason but he doesn't need one other than it's what she wants. She pulls the rope too tight and he hisses tugging on them to get some slack. She relents just enough to not damage his hand permanently.

She doesn't do him the dignity of getting more undressed than is necessary to slip her bottom undergarment off. His bed is of an average size for most of his station but it is far too small for him and his feet dangle out over the edge as he stretches out to accommodate her on it. Her hand is small against his heaving chest as she holds him down.

It's the most exquisite torture he's ever experienced as she ever so very slowly sinks down onto him. He's been hard since the moment he saw her in the door way, actually he'd woken up hard and somewhere in the back of his mind he wonders if his dreams had prepared him for this, so he'd be ready for what ever she needed.

Her fingers gouge into his chest when she's fully seated. He keens tossing back his head and not caring who might hear as she scrapes deeper into the wounds. His hips buck up involuntarily and she delivers a quick slap to his face for the unauthorized movement. Her ring splits his lip and a he tastes blood. She does it again this time for her own pleasure and his mouth hangs open as he looks at her with wonder and desperation.

She leaves him marked all over and still harder than he's ever been in his life.

It's difficult to hide some of the marks, the swollen lip being of particular note. The mousy girl throws him a questing look but a glower sends her scurrying across the room. The drunk doctor doesn't comment. He finds the glower works on anyone else who has questions.

He treats the wounds on his chest with ointments to stop any spreed of infection but he doesn't touch any medicine that would make them fade faster. He has them on his thighs too and he lets himself press his over fingers against them reliving the pain as he gets himself off at night.

For her next visit she doesn't even pretend to have another reason other than to part his shirt and study what she's left behind.

For once in his life he doubts the prophecy. Pain, yes she's given him plenty of that, but sorrow is nowhere to be found. Although Nostradamus knows all about the tricky way of prophecy, sorrow could have meant ache because he aches and aches and aches.

She moves him into a room deeper in the dungeons. This one has no windows to the outside and he feels like a part of him has been cut out not being able to see the trees beyond the castle and feel the wind on his naked skin. But it's worth it. It's worth it to have that secret passageway that connects her part of the castle to his. That no one knows about.

She doesn't use it often but when she does she leaves him wrecked in the aftermath. Scratches down his back, bruises on his arms where she'd clutched at him, the sting of her hand against his face.

There hasn't been a vision in over three months and he can feel himself becoming useless to her. The prophecy never said he would be her advisor for long and he feels hollow as her attentions wonder elsewhere. There are rumors of Mary Queen of Scotts return to court and when she demands answers, he has none. She leaves him without so much as touching him.

In a moment of pure desperation he comes to her under the guise of brining a sleeping remedy. He caries in his pocket a small silver knife and when he presents it to her and explains he expects to be laughed at. Instead she tells him to go back to his chambers and wait. He'd first discovered this little cure for when the visions grow scarce when he was fifteen and he fell out of a tree, near deaths door the visions are the sharpest and truest he's ever known but he hardly dares go there. For her, yes one day, but for now the pain should do the trick and bring about something useful.

He does as bid, stripping himself bare and kneeling on the cold hard stones facing the secret door, head bowed in sublimation. He is quite strong, he keeps himself in good shape for a healer, and especially since Catherine De Medici has graced his bed he keeps up his strength. But after what must be hours his legs behind to shake a little and he has to sit down. His knees scream in pain and he wishes he'd put something under them to cushion them from the rough stones but he doesn't dare move. He's been told to stay like this till she comes and by all the gods he'll stay like this even if the morning sun comes before she does.

She slips into his chambers and all the tension goes out of him. He expects to be pushed to the floor as he is sometimes, to told to get on the bed, or even told to stay put as she uses his mouth as is more often the case. But tonight she guides him to his feet and drags him into the passageway. His heart thumbs in his chest as they make their way to her rooms.

Once there he stand awkwardly in the corner trying and failing to not take up space in her sanctuary where he doesn't belong. Everything is plush, deep reds and gold, soft candle light. He's darkness, and the rough burlap cloak she'd throw over his shoulders, and chapped lips, and callous hands. He does not belong here.

She double checks the internal lock assuring herself no one can enter before beckoning him further in. He steps into the light as if afraid to be seen. It's foolish, she's seen every inch of his body and laid her mark on every patch of skin.

She motions and he lets the cloak fall from his shoulder and pool at his feet.

Next to the fire place she'd already laid out some old sheets and fabric easily discarded, he needs nothing more than a nod to tell him where to go. Nostradamus stretches out in the glow of the firelight closing his eyes briefly to feel the warmth of it sooth his skin.

He cracks his eyes open to watch her lay out three things.

The sight of the knife sends a spark of pure want through him.

The sight of the small jar of healing salve speaks more of her care for him than he ever thought she could.

The short iron poker with a branding symbol shaped like an ornate ‘C’ on the end sends him mind reeling in so many directions he startles when she finally touches him.

Her elbow brushes against his forehead as she positions the poker in the fire. His eyes fix on it as the metal starts to heat and glow. Her fingers are on his chin forcing his gaze back to her.

"You will give me a true vision tonight of my son's future and I will mark you as mine for ever and ever more."

He gulps and knows deep in his soul he'd use his dying breath to give her what she wants.

She straddles him in a distressingly familiar position that has him cursing the fact she hadn't allowed him any undergarments to at least restrain himself.

"Stop that at once or it will be the first place I start to cut." She warns digging her knee into his crotch painfully which of course has the opposite effect. He's standing to full attention just at her words. But the smile of a predator that creases her lips is worth it.

The knife slices into the tender skin of his inner thigh steady and sure. Blood drips out and she doesn't give him a moment to recover before an identical slice is made in his other thigh.

Her questions are clear as she drags the knife along his skin. Sometimes bitting into it and drawing blood, sometimes teasing, sometimes slicing so quick he has to bite his tongue not to cry out. He tells her everything, ever detail, ever sound, ever image that comes to him. He spills it all as she spills his blood.

He tells her of the maid who's been thieving and who will have a affair with the cook.

He tells her of the fruitful harvest and the three baby goats which will reck havoc in the kitchen tomorrow.

He tells her about a flash of moonlight catching on some diamond earrings which are not yet hers.

He tells her of the small fire that will consume the west wing of the castle prompting repairs and loosing many precious books to history. She promises to have them moved and he wants to thank her but the knife is in him again this time digging into his forearm as she ask-

"What of my son."

White flowers stained with blood and for once he holds his tongue.

She knows he's holding back though and this time when the knife comes for him he can't hold back the cry as it cut just above his aching cock.

"If you want to remain useful to me, you will tell me what you just saw." She means it in more way than one and he's so sure in that moment she will de-man him if he doesn't give her what she wants. But the visions of Francis are too unsure and wavering, she won't be satisfied and he feels no more will come tonight. It its but a small flame and blowing on it too hard will cause it to die, he must nurture that image till it becomes clearer. And Catherine De Medici has never been accused of being one to just wait around for something.

So he gives her that one vision that's tormented him the most, he tells her of how he knew what her body felt like long long before she ever touched him. He's yet to see her fully naked outside of his head but he tells her of the mole right above her right hip and the small white scar under he left breast. He sobs it all out, every detail that's been burned into his mind.

He hears the knife clatter the floor and realizes he'd closed his eyes not wanting to see her reaction.

When he forces them open she's above him, still dresses in her night garments but she's holding the brand. She stares down at him for and long moment and he looks up at her pleading with his eyes. He's never been meant for anything else but this, it's where he belongs at her side, marked by her, changed by her, moulded into what ever she needs of him.

He clenches down to stop himself from flinching as the hot end burns into the flesh above his heart.


End file.
